


how tigers get their stripes

by laughinghyena



Category: Ushio to Tora | Ushio and Tora
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 04:44:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6940288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughinghyena/pseuds/laughinghyena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tora points out Ushio's scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how tigers get their stripes

**Author's Note:**

> Eeh. Not proud of this one. It feels so unfinished, but I don't know what to add. Sorry. It started off okay and then fettered off when it started getting serious. Maybe as summer rolls around my work will be better.
> 
> Any suggestions on how to improve would be highly appreciated.

Tora yawned, his jaws spreading in two and tongue curling back to expose rows of formidable teeth, sinking further into the bubbling water. Those teeth fazed the youth across from him no more than a mewling kitten-- in fact, he seized the opportunity to cup his hands under the hot spring’s surface and squirt a jet of water straight into his open mouth. For old time’s sake-- Tora never did learn how to do it, as mystified as he was months ago.

Interrupted mid-stretch, the tiger burst halfway from the water and sputtered uncontrollably, spitting water and coughing pitifully. With petty outrage etched into every line of his expression, in the very same second Tora lunged forward with his claws outstretched. Ushio would’ve been able to easily slip out of the way and watch his partner make a fool of himself flailing in the water had he not been too preoccupied laughing at his antics, giving Tora just enough time to land squarely on his chest with enough force to knock the wind out of him. Both parties knew it was hastily calculated to cause no further injury-- when a smirk crosses Ushio’s face that made it seem like he was going to point it out, Tora sneered and sunk underneath the water, blowing bubbles in Ushio’s direction while glaring up at him.

“Don’t think I’m going easy on you…. I’m just not wasting my energy on a fight I know I’ll win,” the yokai growled, feigning an intimidating face. Clearly this wasn’t the case, and merely an excuse to gloss over Tora’s unusual disinterest in a spat. Truthfully, he was so exhausted after a long day that he had no energy for silly fights or even too much joking. 

Ushio felt the same. The hot water unknotted his battered muscles and cleaned his scabby wounds, but the fatigue persisted -- the steam and the temperature and the stillness (before he had disrupted it, that was) was relaxing enough to almost tempt him into napping.

“Psh. Let me get some rest.” 

Keeping the words to a minimum, Ushio halfheartedly flicked some water into the monster’s eyes and resumed his relaxing position, legs outstretched and elbows loosely supported by the rocks behind him. His eyes drooped shut and his chin was drawn back, until it too was lazily supported by the pool’s rim, letting the world around him phase out -- for the most part. Habitually, he would listen for the water to splash as Tora moved away, but it sounded like he was just sitting in the same place. 

And he was. Tora was examining everything he could see, his slanted white eyes scanning up and down the trim and youthful body before him. He’d changed quite exponentially; sinewy and tan, the musculature delicately defined underneath his mottled skin. Nearly perfect, had it not been for the mementos of many a battle that ravaged his skin, the marks they left ranging from deep pits and gouges to raised welts to what looked like nothing but feather-traces of pale ink. 

“You have so many...” a gruff semi-whisper, judgemental but tender in the most subliminal of ways. No pupils existed to make Tora’s gaze trackable, but the object of the youkai’s observation could feel his skin prickle along the paths his eyes took. 

At the gravelly sound of his voice, Ushio opened one eye, staring at Tora through half a slothful gaze. 

“What the hell are you muttering about, idiot?”

When met by a blazing orange face mere inches from his own, the teenager’s countenance snapped to attention, displeasure spreading across it as he used his feet to push Tora back to a more comfortable distance. As he opened his mouth to voice his complaints and tell Tora to back off, the tiger interrupted him.

“Don’t call me an idiot. Scars. I remember this one.”

Tora traced a clawed thumb over Ushio’s chest, outlining a thick white line that spanned from his right clavicle diagonally to his sternum. The boy shivered underneath the touch, and instinctively clasped his hands over the much larger paw to direct it elsewhere. The stories behind each were surprisingly vivid. From the skirmish with Juurou and his weasel siblings, to the brain-eating yokai, to the family of heads, head to toe Ushio’s stories were carved into his skin. Clumsy boy. 

“Human bodies are so fragile. I don’t have a single scar, not even from where I was held by that spear.”

That was a lie. Burnt deeply into Tora’s fur, charcoal stripes marring the burnt orange of his coarse pelt, were his scars, giving him his distinct appearance. The black grooves that dipped below his eyes in twin sets were his scars, the tears of the long-gone Shagakusha, monuments to a life of tragedy. 

In his brashness, in his anger, in the layers of hate and pain that sucked at his soul like a leech until there was only a husk left of what once was human. In the way Tora’s claws flexed when he was asked about his past and the electricity would tauten the air around them when he was asked. In his eagerness to fight, his decades spent pillaging and devouring and filling the void in himself with the lives of others. Tora’s hesitance, his inability, his fear of caring were his scars, whose stories were ingrained much deeper than any ever laceration of the skin.

Ushio knew this all, but for once, he knew to remain silent: no chuff or dissuasion, no crude japes or argument. He raised his own dripping arms out of the water and cupped Tora’s cheeks with surprising gentility. The human’s digits followed the broad paths of the stripes up around Tora’s eyes, which brooded and watched every move. Tail twitching slightly underneath the water, Tora stiffly let Ushio touch him in such a way, parting his lips ever so slightly to keep his teeth a visible reminder. Still, he didn’t struggle or duck away, lowering his barriers and making himself vulnerable-- which would have been so uncharacteristic of the Tora of months past or the Shagakusha centuries away. 

“Everyone has scars. Mine are just easier to see than yours... but scars show you where you’ve healed. See? You’re not flinching or pushing my hands away....” 

Ushio was right. Tora wouldn’t admit it aloud, but he knew; his ears swiveled back in distaste, an argument clinging to the tip of his tongue but being swallowed like sandpaper. Maybe that’s what he meant by healing. Maybe healing was the newfound ease that Tora could lean in close with, feeling each puff of Ushio’s hot breath without shudders of revulsion, and how simply their lips fit together like the pieces of a puzzle finally being joined. How he could explore the human’s body without fear, slipping his arms around the boy’s waist to keep their bodies in unison. That he felt at home in Ushio’s bed or atop his roof, finally filled with solace when running alongside the young hunter.

That means Ushio too had healed in his own ways, arching his back when the yokai’s claws dug ten diagonal stripes across his shoulders to make sure they always stayed close.


End file.
